I bought some AirPods recently and they’ve been great — good sound and comfortable to wear. They have this thing called spatial sound that’s supposed to create something like a surround sound effect. I’ve only really noticed it when watching a movie and I turn my head to one side or the other and the sound shifts. It’s pretty subtle and feels like a bit of a gimmick because practically all the time I’m watching a movie on my MacBook I’m staring straight ahead at the screen.
The other night I was watching an episode of the recent show Mr and Mrs Smith. Donald Glover and Maya Erskine were having a fairly intense talk about whether having children would be a good idea when there is a tapping at the door. And it sounds like it’s coming from right the glass door right behind me so my heart does a mid-chest flip. I pull out the AirPods and look outside and it takes me a moment to realise that it was just the show.
I rewind a bit and start watching again and about a minute later I hear the tapping from behind me again and I jump out of my skin again even though I’d just gone through the same thing not ten minutes before. Spatial sound may well be a bit of an afterthought now, but if someone put a lot of thought into it, they could create something pretty great.